Praise for the Novels of Rosalind Noonan
All She Ever Wanted
“Noonan has a knack for page-turners and doesn’t disappoint . . . a readable tale.”—Publishers Weekly
The Daughter She Used to Be
“An engrossing family saga and a suspenseful legal thriller. Noonan covers a lot of narrative ground, with a large cast of characters whose situations involve morally complex issues, as well as knotty family dynamics. This novel would fuel some great book-club discussions.”—ShelfAwareness
In a Heartbeat
“Complex, intriguing characters and an intensely emotional plot make In a Heartbeat compelling.”—RT Book Reviews
One September Morning
“Written with great insight into military families and the constant struggle between supporting the troops but not the war . . . Noonan delivers a fast-paced, character-driven tale with a touch of mystery.”—Publishers Weekly
“Noonan creates a unique thriller that is anti–Iraq War and pro-solider, a novel that focuses on the toll war takes on returning soldiers and civilians whose loved ones won’t be coming home.”—Booklist
“Reminiscent of Jodi Picoult’s kind of tale . . . it’s a keeper!”
—Lisa Jackson, New York Times best-selling author
“Gripping and emotional, the story could not be more timely.”
—RT Book Club
“Carefully plotted, well-paced, and taut, this novel builds to a stunning conclusion.”
—The Romance Readers Connection
“This is an intense and emotional story that readers are sure to enjoy. Grab a hankie; you will need one for One September-Morning.”
—Romance Reviews Today
Books by Rosalind Noonan
ONE SEPTEMBER MORNING
IN A HEARTBEAT
THE DAUGHTER SHE USED TO BE
ALL SHE EVER WANTED
AND THEN SHE WAS GONE
Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation
AND THEN SHE WAS GONE
ROSALIND NOONAN
KENSINGTON BOOKS
KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.
www.kensingtonbooks.com
All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.
Table of Contents
Praise for the Novels of Rosalind Noonan
Books by Rosalind Noonan
Title Page
Dedication
PART 1 - Long Ago and Far Away
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
PART 2 - Come In from the Cold
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
PART 3 - Jump Up Behind Me
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Epilogue
Teaser chapter
A READING GROUP GUIDE
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Copyright Page
For my niece, Elizabeth Hartley
Artist, Reader, Shiny Bright Thinker
Thank you for sharing your inspiring sketches
“It is better to laugh and cry than to just cry.”
—Jaycee Dugard
PART 1
Long Ago and Far Away
Prologue
It was a nothing day.
Nothing exciting had happened at school, and nothing good was going to happen tonight with all the homework weighing down her backpack as she plodded along Wildwood Lane, heading home. Homework was annoying because it took Lauren away from fun things, like reading about dragons in ancient kingdoms or sketching the gargoyles and winged beasts that decorated her thoughts. Lauren imagined sliding the heavy pack off and kicking it down the street. That would be fun, except it might mess up her sketchbook inside. She wiped the damp blond hair from the nape of her neck and sighed. Looking on the good side, at least Mom was letting her go home on her own instead of sitting in that stuffy classroom of babies in the after-school program.
Why-oh-why did Mom and Dad think she needed after-school babysitting? She wasn’t like Sierra, six years old and still a baby. Lauren was eleven and perfectly capable of walking home on her own, one foot in front of the other. And she didn’t mind the walk, even when it was raining, which was pretty often. Thirty-seven inches a year in the city of Portland; that was a fact. Some people acted like the rain would melt them, like the Wicked Witch of the West.
That would make a cool sketch. A melting creature.
More than anything else, Lauren liked to draw. Her new obsession had overtaken her passion for reading a few months ago when she’d realized that nobody was going to give her a job for reading, but sketching had possibilities. She could see herself sitting at one of those artist’s drawing tables, creating graphic novels or animated characters for movies. Already she had two sketchbooks filled with gargoyles and winged beasts, fairies and elves, and illustrated phobias. She was proud of her illustration of thirty phobias; from acarophobia, fear of itchy, crawly insects, to selachophobia, fear of sharks.
Someday, someone was going to discover her talent, and then she would get a chance to complete her phobia illustrations, because there were many, many more.
The Eastons’ overgrown bush blocked the sidewalk, and Lauren reached one hand out to bat off the leaves as she sideswiped it. The bush had grown into a giant mushroom shape, which attracted the neighborhood kids like catnip. Sierra and her friends would run underneath the springy twigs, shrieking like hyenas. Lauren grabbed onto a crisp leaf and imagined the bush coming to life: a giant mushroom with a cap that curled down over the unsuspecting children huddled under it.
Just what Sierra deserved. Mom got mad when Lauren talked about it, but Sierra was a six-year-old dodo birdbrain. In fact, because of her pesky sister, Lauren had almost been stuck in Aftercare with Sierra and her first-grade friends. Dad totally didn’t get why Lauren wanted out. He was disappointed that she didn’t like spending time with her sister. At least Mom was beginning to understand that the five years between her and Sierra made a huge difference. Huge.
She let the branch snap back. Just two more weeks of this. Sixth grade was boring—more of the same stuff they’d done before with the same teachers. She doubted that junior high would be any more interesting.
But summer . . . summer vacation was going to be awesome.
This year Lauren was old enough to stay with her grandparents on Mirror Lake. She longed to wake up on the lake and spend the day drawing birds a
nd flowers and magical creatures that rose from the lake or formed in the clouds. Maybe she would get to sketch some more phobias.
Eleven was a good age to get away from your parents for a while. Definitely a good age to get away from Sierra.
Just then a hummingbird zipped over her head and darted toward the Millers’ house. Lauren watched in wonder as it hovered over their porch—a flash of iridescent green—near a feeder shaped like a spaceship. The Millers didn’t seem to be home, so she edged closer; besides, they probably wouldn’t mind as long as she didn’t trample anything.
“Oh, little hummingbird.” It seemed like a sign of good luck and affection. The hummingbird wouldn’t have dipped so close to her if it didn’t know how she loved creatures. Although she knew the little bird was too fast to sketch, she dropped her backpack to the ground and took out her sketchbook. The cloud of glimmering green—that was what she wanted to capture in a speed sketch.
The hummingbird lingered, and Lauren sat down in the grass with her pad in her lap. Why shouldn’t she stay a minute?
She gasped as the little bird darted close again, buzzing her pulse to a rapid pace. And then, he flew off.
Lauren twirled strands of golden hair around one fingertip as the volume seemed to turn up around her. Birdsong and the smell of warm soil. Insects bouncing in a cloud over the yard and so much green. Leaves and ivy and grassy lawns. Tiny violet flowers wove through the grass beneath her in a random pattern that she found irresistible. This she could sketch.
“Hey, there.” Although it was a friendly voice, with the steady timbre of a teacher or a dad, Lauren was startled.
A man stood over her, a hulking figure backlit by the sunlight. She squinted up at him just enough to decipher the uniform shirt and the brown paper package in his hand. A white van idled by the curb.
Some delivery guy.
“Do you want to sign for this?” Clutching the package awkwardly, he hunched down beside her.
Too close. Lauren didn’t like people that close, especially strangers. The sun glinted off little slivers of gold in his short hair, but his face was in shadow.
Pressing her sketchpad to her chest, she leaned away. “I don’t live here.”
“No? You look pretty much at home.”
He was teasing. She knew that. Adults said stupid things like that all the time, even when they didn’t know you. Still, she wished he would just go away. “Is that for the Millers?” she asked.
“Yeah, the Millers.” He fumbled with a black gizmo beside the box. One of those electronic pads that scanned the packages. The man didn’t look creepy, but something about the way his blue eyes pinned her down made Lauren squirm.
She clambered back, away from him, and shoved her sketchbook away. “I got to go.”
“What’s your hurry? It’s too nice a day to be rushing around.”
Bowing away from the pressure of his stare, she fumbled with the zipper on her backpack. She heard the whir of a lawn mower nearby but didn’t see any neighbors or kids out on the block. Now she wished the Millers were home. She wished she hadn’t stopped. She had to get home.
Suddenly the man’s hand clamped over her arm, cruelty in his grip.
“Let me go!” she ordered, adrenaline shooting through her body. She yanked back, determined to shake him loose. But as she tried to pull away, he pressed something to her neck and . . .
Brrrr . . .
She sucked in a breath as her whole body cramped up in a cold jolt of pain.
Terrible slamming p-p-pain!
The instinct to get away was strong, but her body was useless, hunched and rigid and sprawled on the green lawn. Somewhere in her mind it registered that she had peed in her pants, but that didn’t seem to matter. Her mind didn’t have the strength to be embarrassed because it was wrapped around the pain.
How long did she lie there—seconds? Minutes? The sound of him near her pierced through her daze. She had to get up!
Face-to-face with the tiny purple flowers, she pressed into the earth, tearing at grass and clover as she tried to get up. Get up and get away!
But the best she could do was to tear up a handful of green clover.
She grasped it in one fist, holding on to the last trace of home as the man lifted her under the arms and dragged her away.
Chapter 1
Six Years Later
Rachel O’Neil watched from the bleachers as one by one the members of the senior class crossed the stage to receive their diplomas from Dr. Kendris, principal of Mirror Lake High School.
“Nora Berton.”
Rachel applauded and whooped it up with her friend as Julia’s daughter crossed the stage. Julia shifted forward on the bleacher seat and snapped some shots with her digital camera as Nora accepted her diploma.
“Congratulations, Mom,” Rachel said quietly as Julia’s lower lip rumpled into a pout.
“I can’t believe it.” The two women exchanged a quick hug, and then settled back into their spots.
As other graduates were called, Rachel watched Nora make her way back to her seat, hugging classmates along the way. Such a good kid. A memory from years ago flashed across Rachel’s mind: overhearing Nora asking Lauren if she wanted to be best friends. Would the girls have remained friends through high school? Grown closer or drifted apart? The “what-if” game always taunted her this way.
“Trevor Feron.” Amidst applause, it was announced that Trevor would be heading to the University of Oregon next year.
As the tall boy moved in measured steps across the stage, Rachel smoothed back her hair, once the color of caramel, now layered with streaks of gold to blend with the gray. She had aged, but so had the students. Although he’d grown a soul patch since Rachel had been his seventh-grade English teacher, he was still the same unkempt Trev. “Still blinded by those bangs,” Rachel muttered.
Her friend Julia leaned close to add, “It’s a wonder he can see to make it across the stage.” Julia Berton knew all of these characters as well as Rachel. It was Julia, parent of a graduate, who had scored these seats in the bleachers for Rachel and Dan, who had bowed out at the last minute.
“I can’t do it,” Dan had told her that morning as he’d stared into his coffee. “I can’t sit there and watch every other kid in that class graduate just because my daughter should be there with them. I can’t stand to look at the faces of Lauren’s classmates and long for what could have been. What should have been.”
“That’s not why we’re going. Don’t you want to see Nora graduate? She and Julia are like family.”
But Dan had not budged. “You go. They were your students; you taught most of them in junior high. They’ll be happy to see you.”
Rachel doubted that anyone in Mirror Lake was happy to see her these days. She knew she had gained a reputation as a bulldog mom, voraciously chomping at city and state authorities to keep the search for her daughter open and active. When parents dared to make eye contact with her, there was pity in their eyes . . . pity and hopelessness and relief that it had not happened to their daughter. Rachel understood their discomfort. Some kept their distance out of fear that her tragedy might be contagious. Others didn’t know what to say to her, the parent of a child of uncertain destiny.
Lauren had been in a class with achievers. On stage now, Brooke Fitkin towered over the administrators. She was headed for Stanford on a basketball scholarship. Kara Gaines was off to Southern Oregon University. Jordan Gilroy was going to UVA for swimming. And Erica Glass had earned a javelin scholarship to a university in Hawaii. “A full ride,” as Julia kept saying.
Mirror Lake had one of the top-ranked high schools in Oregon—of course it did. It was one of the reasons she and Dan had scraped and saved and borrowed money from Dan’s parents to buy a modest house here when they could have afforded a nicer place with property just about anywhere else in the Portland area. Great schools, plenty of parks and green space, responsive police force, low crime rate . . . these were factors that wooed young fam
ilies to the lake community. Outsiders mocked Mirror Lake residents for their “life in a protected bubble,” but who would not choose a town where the “civil war” was between rival football teams instead of rival gangs?
Seeing these students now, Rachel recognized them all with their little quirks. Yes, she cared about these kids, but Dan was wrong about one thing. They were not her kids. They were not Lauren. She had not come to any other ceremonies to watch her former students graduate. Sitting here beside Julia, the mother of Lauren’s best friend of long ago, Rachel knew that Dan had been right the first time. She was not here for these kids; she was here to represent Lauren, in some sick way. Lauren, who should have graduated from high school today. She couldn’t let go of that. She couldn’t give up on her oldest child. This was Lauren’s class. What if Lauren’s abductor had let her continue school somewhere else—in another state? Maybe Lauren was graduating today.
Since the day Lauren started kindergarten, Rachel had pictured this day. Her bright, artistic daughter had started school a year before most and would be graduating high school at the age of seventeen. “I can’t hold her back,” Rachel had told people. A teacher herself, Rachel could see that her daughter was ready for school, hungry to learn, pushing for routine and independence at the age of four. Rachel and Dan had shared high hopes for Lauren. An Ivy League school. A dynamic career. “How high can you soar?” she and Dan used to ask Lauren when they pushed her on the tree swing. Lauren would kick her legs and lean back to propel herself high in the air as she answered: “Up to the stars!”
And Then She Was Gone Page 1